Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures

Douglas William Jerrold

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• Publié par: raner
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 31
• Langue: English

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Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures, by Douglas Jerrold

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Title: Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures

Author: Douglas Jerrold

Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6054] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 28, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

Transcribed from the 1902 R. Brimley Johnson edition by David Price, email [e-mail]

MRS. CAUDLE’S CURTAIN LECTURES BY DOUGLAS JERROLD

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

It has happened to the writer that two, or three, or ten, or twenty gentlewomen have asked him - and asked in various notes of wonder, pity, and reproof -

“What could have made you think of Mrs. Caudle?

“How could such a thing have entered any man’s mind?”

There are subjects that seem like rain drops to fall upon a man’s head, the head itself having nothing to do with the matter. The result of no train of thought, there is the picture, the statue, the book, wafted, like the smallest seed, into the brain to feed upon the soil, such as it may be, and grow there. And this was, no doubt, the accidental cause of the literary sowing and expansion - unfolding like a night-flower - of MRS. CAUDLE.

But let a jury of gentlewomen decide.

It was a thick, black wintry afternoon, when the writer stopt in the front of the playground of a suburban school. The ground swarmed with boys full of the Saturday’s holiday. The earth seemed roofed with the oldest lead, and the wind came, sharp as Shylock’s knife, from the Minories. But those happy boys ran and jumped, and hopped, and shouted, and - unconscious men in miniature! - in their own world of frolic, had no thought of the full-length men they would some day become; drawn out into grave citizenship; formal, respectable, responsible. To them the sky was of any or all colours; and for that keen east wind - if it was called the east wind - cutting the shoulder-blades of old, old men of forty{1}- they in their immortality of boyhood had the redder faces, and the nimbler blood for it.

And the writer, looking dreamily into that playground, still mused on the robust jollity of those little fellows, to whom the tax-gatherer was as yet a rarer animal than baby hippopotamus. Heroic boyhood, so ignorant of the future in the knowing enjoyment of the present! And the writer still dreaming and musing, and still following no distinct line of thought, there struck upon him, like notes of sudden household music, these words - CURTAIN LECTURES.

One moment there was no living object save those racing, shouting boys; and the next, as though a white dove had alighted on the pen hand of the writer, there was - MRS. CAUDLE.

Ladies of the jury, are there not then some subjects of letters that mysteriously assert an effect without any discoverable cause? Otherwise, wherefore should the thought of CURTAIN LECTURES grow from a school ground - wherefore, among a crowd of holiday school-boys, should appear MRS. CAUDLE?

For the LECTURES themselves, it is feared they must be given up as a farcical desecration of a solemn time-honoured privilege; it may be, exercised once in a life time, - and that once having the effect of a hundred repetitions, as Job lectured his wife. And Job’s wife, a certain Mohammedan writer delivers, having committed a fault in her love to her husband, he swore that

on his recovery he would deal her a hundred stripes. Job got well, and his heart was touched and taught by the tenderness to keep his vow, and still to chastise his help-mate; for he smote her once with a palm-branch having a hundred leaves.

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

INTRODUCTION

Poor Job Caudle was one of the few men whom Nature, in her casual bounty to women, sends into the world as patient listeners. He was, perhaps, in more respects than one, all ears. And these ears, Mrs. Caudle - his lawful, wedded wife as she would ever and anon impress upon him, for she was not a woman to wear chains without shaking them - took whole and sole possession of. They were her entire property; as expressly made to convey to Caudle’s brain the stream of wisdom that continually flowed from the lips of his wife, as was the tin funnel through which Mrs. Caudle in vintage time bottled her elder wine. There was, however, this difference between the wisdom and the wine. The wine was always sugared: the wisdom, never. It was expressed crude from the heart of Mrs. Caudle; who, doubtless, trusted to the sweetness of her husband’s disposition to make it agree with him.

Philosophers have debated whether morning or night is most conducive to the strongest and clearest moral impressions. The Grecian sage confessed that his labours smelt of the lamp. In like manner did Mrs. Caudle’s wisdom smell of the rushlight. She knew that her husband was too much distracted by his business as toyman and doll-merchant to digest her lessons in the broad day. Besides, she could never make sure of him: he was always liable to be summoned to the shop. Now from eleven at night until seven in the morning there was no retreat for him. He was compelled to lie and listen. Perhaps there was little magnanimity in this on the part of Mrs. Caudle; but in marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. Besides, Mrs. Caudle copied very ancient and classic authority. Minerva’s bird, the very wisest thing in feathers, is silent all the day. So was Mrs. Caudle. Like the owl, she hooted only at night.

Mr. Caudle was blessed with an indomitable constitution. One fact will prove the truth of this. He lived thirty years with Mrs. Caudle, surviving her. Yes, it took thirty years for Mrs. Caudle to lecture and dilate upon the joys, griefs, duties, and vicissitudes comprised within that seemingly small circle - the wedding-ring. We say, seemingly small; for the thing, as viewed by the vulgar, naked eye, is a tiny hoop made for the third feminine finger. Alack! like the ring of Saturn, for good or evil, it circles a whole world. Or, to take a less gigantic figure, it compasses a vast region: it may be Arabia Felix, and it may be Arabia Petrea.

A lemon-hearted cynic might liken the wedding-ring to an ancient circus, in which wild animals clawed one another for the sport of lookers-on. Perish the hyperbole! We would rather compare it to an elfin ring, in which dancing fairies made the sweetest music for infirm humanity.

Manifold are the uses of rings. Even swine are tamed by them. You will see a vagrant,

hilarious, devastating porker - a full-blooded fellow that would bleed into many, many fathoms of black pudding - you will see him, escaped from his proper home, straying in a neighbour’s garden. How he tramples upon the heart’s-ease: how, with quivering snout, he roots up lilies - odoriferous bulbs! Here he gives a reckless snatch at thyme and marjoram - and here he munches violets and gilly-flowers. At length the marauder is detected, seized by his owner, and driven, beaten home. To make the porker less dangerous, it is determined that he shall be ringed. The sentence is pronounced - execution ordered. Listen to his screams!

“Would you not think the knife was in his throat? And yet they’re only boring through his nose!”

Hence, for all future time, the porker behaves himself with a sort of forced propriety - for in either nostril he carries a ring. It is, for the greatness of humanity, a saddening thought, that sometimes men must be treated no better than pigs.

But Mr. Job Caudle was not of these men. Marriage to him was not made a necessity. No; for him call it if you will a happy chance - a golden accident. It is, however, enough for us to know that he was married; and was therefore made the recipient of a wife’s wisdom. Mrs. Caudle, like Mahomet’s dove, continually pecked at the good man’s ears; and it is a happiness to learn from what he left behind that he had hived all her sayings in his brain; and further, that he employed the mellow evening of his life to put such sayings down, that, in due season, they might be enshrined in imperishable type.

When Mr. Job Caudle was left in this briary world without his daily guide and nocturnal monitress, he was in the ripe fulness of fifty-seven. For three hours at least after he went to bed - such slaves are we to habit - he could not close an eye. His wife still talked at his side. True it was, she was dead and decently interred. His mind - it was a comfort to know it - could not wander on this point; this he knew. Nevertheless, his wife was with him. The Ghost of her Tongue still talked as in the life; and again and again did Job Caudle hear the monitions of bygone years. At times, so loud, so lively, so real were the sounds, that Job, with a cold chill, doubted if he were really widowed. And then, with the movement of an arm, a foot, he would assure himself that he was alone in his holland. Nevertheless, the talk continued. It was terrible to be thus haunted by a voice: to have advice, commands, remonstrance, all sorts of saws and adages still poured upon him, and no visible wife. Now did the voice speak from the curtains; now from the tester; and now did it whisper to Job from the very pillow that he pressed. “It’s a dreadful thing that her tongue should walk in this manner,” said Job, and then he thought confusedly of exorcism, or at least of counsel from the parish priest.

Whether Job followed his own brain, or the wise direction of another, we know not. But he resolved every night to commit to paper one curtain lecture of his late wife. The employment would, possibly, lay the ghost that haunted him. It was her dear tongue that cried for justice, and when thus satisfied, it might possibly rest in quiet. And so it happened. Job faithfully chronicled all his late wife’s lectures; the ghost of her tongue was thenceforth silent, and Job slept all his after nights in peace.

When Job died, a small packet of papers was found inscribed as follows:-

“Curtain Lectures delivered in the course of Thirty Years by Mrs. Margaret Caudle,and suffered by Job,her Husband.”

That Mr. Caudle had his eye upon the future printer, is made pretty probable by the fact that in most places he had affixed the text - such text for the most part arising out of his own daily conduct - to the lecture of the night. He had also, with an instinctive knowledge of the dignity of literature, left a bank-note of very fair amount with the manuscript. Following our duty as editor, we trust we have done justice to both documents.

LECTURE I - MR. CAUDLE HAS LENT FIVE POUNDS TO A FRIEND

“You ought to be very rich, Mr. Caudle. I wonder who’d lend you five pounds? But so it is: a wife may work and may slave! Ha, dear! the many things that might have been done with five pounds. As if people picked up money in the street! But you always were a fool, Mr. Caudle! I’ve wanted a black satin gown these three years, and that five pounds would have entirely bought it. But it’s no matter how I go, - not at all. Everybody says I don’t dress as becomes your wife - and I don’t; but what’s that to you, Mr. Caudle? Nothing. Oh, no! you can have fine feelings for everybody but those belonging to you. I wish people knew you, as I do - that’s all. You like to be called liberal - and your poor family pays for it.

“All the girls want bonnets, and where they’re to come from I can’t tell. Half five pounds would have bought ’em - but now they must go without. Of course,theybelong to you: and anybody but your own flesh and body, Mr. Caudle!

“The man called for the water-rate to-day; but I should like to know how people are to pay taxes, who throw away five pounds to every fellow that asks them?

“Perhaps you don’t know that Jack, this morning, knocked his shuttlecock through his bedroom window. I was going to send for the glazier to mend it; but after you lent that five pounds I was sure we couldn’t afford it. Oh, no! the window must go as it is; and pretty weather for a dear child to sleep with a broken window. He’s got a cold already on his lungs, and I shouldn’t at all wonder if that broken window settled him. If the dear boy dies, his death will be upon his father’s head; for I’m sure we can’t now pay to mend windows. We might though, and do a good many more things too, if people didn’t throw away their five pounds.

“Next Tuesday the fire-insurance is due. I should like to know how it’s to be paid? Why, it can’t be paid at all! That five pounds would have more than done it - and now, insurance is out of the question. And there never were so many fires as there are now. I shall never close my eyes all

night, - but what’s that to you, so people can call you liberal, Mr. Caudle? Your wife and children may all be burnt alive in their beds - as all of us to a certainty shall be, for the insurancemust drop. And after we’ve insured for so many years! But how, I should like to know, are people to insure who make ducks and drakes of their five pounds?

“I did think we might go to Margate this summer. There’s poor little Caroline, I’m sure she wants the sea. But no, dear creature! she must stop at home - all of us must stop at home - she’ll go into a consumption, there’s no doubt of that; yes - sweet little angel! - I’ve made up my mind to lose her,nowchild might have been saved; but people can’t save their children and throw. The away their five pounds too.

“I wonder where poor little Mopsy is! While you were lending that five pounds, the dog ran out of the shop. You know, I never let it go into the street, for fear it should be bit by some mad dog, and come home and bite all the children. It wouldn’t now at all astonish me if the animal was to come back with the hydrophobia, and give it to all the family. However, what’s your family to you, so you can play the liberal creature with five pounds?

“Do you hear that shutter, how it’s banging to and fro? Yes, - I know what it wants as well as you; it wants a new fastening. I was going to send for the blacksmith to-day, but now it’s out of the question:nowit must bang of nights, since you’ve thrown away five pounds.

“Ha! there’s the soot falling down the chimney. If I hate the smell of anything, it’s the smell of soot. And you know it; but what are my feelings to you?Sweep the chimney! Yes, it’s all very fine to say sweep the chimney - but how are chimneys to be swept - how are they to be paid for by people who don’t take care of their five pounds?

“Do you hear the mice running about the room? I hear them. If they were to drag only you out of bed, it would be no matter.Set a trap for them! Yes, it’s easy enough to say - set a trap for ’em. But how are people to afford mouse-traps, when every day they lose five pounds?

“Hark! I’m sure there’s a noise downstairs. It wouldn’t at all surprise me if there were thieves in the house. Well, itmaybe the cat; but thieves are pretty sure to come in some night. There’s a wretched fastening to the back-door; but these are not times to afford bolts and bars, when people won’t take care of their five pounds.

“Mary Anne ought to have gone to the dentist’s to-morrow. She wants three teeth taken out. Now, it can’t be done. Three teeth that quite disfigure the child’s mouth. But there they must stop, and spoil the sweetest face that was ever made. Otherwise, she’d have been a wife for a lord. Now, when she grows up, who’ll have her? Nobody. We shall die, and leave her alone and unprotected in the world. But what do you care for that? Nothing; so you can squander away five pounds.”

“And thus,” comments Caudle, “according to my wife,she - dear soul!- couldn’t have a satin gown - the girls couldn’t have new bonnets-the water-rate must stand over - Jack must get his death through a broken window - our fire-insurance couldn’t be paid,so that we should all fall victims to the devouring element - we couldn’t go to Margate,and Caroline would go to an early grave - the dog would come home and bite us all mad - the shutter would go banging for ever - the soot would always fall - the mice never let us have a wink of sleep - thieves be always

breaking in the house - our dear Mary Anne be for ever left an unprotected maid,- and with other evils falling upon us,all,all because I would go on lending five pounds!”

LECTURE II - MR. CAUDLE HAS BEEN AT A TAVERN WITH A FRIEND, AND IS “ENOUGH TO POISON A WOMAN” WITH TOBACCO-SMOKE

“Poor me! Ha! I’m sure I don’t know who’d be a poor woman! I don’t know who’d tie themselves up to a man, if they knew only half they’d have to bear. A wife must stay at home, and be a drudge, whilst a man can go anywhere. It’s enough for a wife to sit like Cinderella by the ashes, whilst her husband can go drinking and singing at a tavern.You never sing? How do I know you never sing? It’s very well for you to say so; but if I could hear you, I daresay you’re among the worst of ’em.

“And now, I suppose, it will be the tavern every night? If you think I’m going to sit up for you, Mr. Caudle, you’re very much mistaken. No: and I’m not going to get out of my warm bed to let you in, either. No: nor Susan shan’t sit up for you. No: nor you shan’t have a latchkey. I’m not going to sleep with the door upon the latch, to be murdered before the morning.

“Faugh! Pah! Whewgh! That filthy tobacco-smoke! It’s enough to kill any decent woman. You know I hate tobacco, and yet you will do it.You don’t smoke yourselfof that? ? What If you go among people whodoYou might as well smoke - indeed,smoke, you’re just as bad, or worse. better. Better smoke yourself than come home with other people’s smoke all in your hair and whiskers.

“I never knew any good come to a man who went to a tavern. Nice companions he picks up there! Yes! people who make it a boast to treat their wives like slaves, and ruin their families. There’s that wretch Harry Prettyman. See what he’s come to! He doesn’t get home now till two in the morning; and then in what a state! He begins quarrelling with the door-mat, that his poor wife may be afraid to speak to him. A mean wretch! But don’t you think I’ll be like Mrs. Prettyman. No: I wouldn’t put up with it from the best man that ever trod. You’ll not make me afraid to speak to you, however you may swear at the door-mat. No, Mr. Caudle, that you won’t.

“You don’t intend to stay out till two in the morning?

“How do you know what you’ll do when you get among such people? Men can’t answer for themselves when they get boozing one with another. They never think of their poor wives, who are grieving and wearing themselves out at home. A nice headache you’ll have to-morrow morning - or ratherthismorning; for it must be past twelve.You won’t have a headache? It’s very well for you to say so, but I know you will; and then you may nurse yourself for me. Ha! that filthy tobacco again! No; I shall not go to sleep like a good soul. How’s people to go to sleep when they’re suffocated?

“Yes, Mr. Caudle, you’ll be nice and ill in the morning! But don’t you think I’m going to let you have your breakfast in bed, like Mrs. Prettyman. I’ll not be such a fool. No; nor I won’t have discredit brought upon the house by sending for soda-water early, for all the neighbourhood to say, ‘Caudle was drunk last night.’ No: I’ve some regard for the dear children, if you haven’t. No: nor you shan’t have broth for dinner. Not a neck of mutton crosses my threshold, I can tell you.

“You won’t want soda,and you won’t want broth? All You wouldn’t get ’em if you did,the better. I can assure you. - Dear, dear, dear! That filthy tobacco! I’m sure it’s enough to make me as bad as you are. Talking about getting divorced, - I’m sure tobacco ought to be good grounds. How little does a woman think, when she marries, that she gives herself up to be poisoned! You men contrive to have it all of your own side, you do. Now if I was to go and leave you and the children, a pretty noise there’d be! You, however, can go and smoke no end of pipes and -You didn’t smokeFolks are knownall the same, Mr. Caudle, if you go among smoking people. ? It’s by their company. You’d better smoke yourself, than bring home the pipes of all the world.

“Yes, I see how it will be. Now you’ve once gone to a tavern, you’ll always be going. You’ll be coming home tipsy every night; and tumbling down and breaking your leg, and putting out your shoulder; and bringing all sorts of disgrace and expense upon us. And then you’ll be getting into a street fight - oh! I know your temper too well to doubt it, Mr. Caudle - and be knocking down some of the police. And then I know what will follow. Itmustyou’ll be sent for afollow. Yes, month or six weeks to the treadmill. Pretty thing that, for a respectable tradesman, Mr. Caudle, to be put upon the treadmill with all sorts of thieves and vagabonds, and - there, again, that horrible tobacco! - and riffraff of every kind. I should like to know how your children are to hold up their heads, after their father has been upon the treadmill? - No; Iwon’tgo to sleep. And I’m not talking of what’s impossible. I know it will all happen - every bit of it. If it wasn’t for the dear children, you might be ruined and I wouldn’t so much as speak about it, but - oh, dear, dear! at least you might go where they smokegoodAttobacco - but I can’t forget that I’m their mother. least, they shall haveoneparent.

“Taverns! Never did a man go to a tavern who didn’t die a beggar. And how your pot- companions will laugh at you when they see your name in the Gazette! For itmusthappen. Your business is sure to fall off; for what respectable people will buy toys for their children of a drunkard? You’re not a drunkard! No: but you will be - it’s all the same.

“You’ve begun by staying out till midnight. By-and-by ’twill be all night. But don’t you think, Mr. Caudle, you shall ever have a key. I know you. Yes; you’d do exactly like that Prettyman, and what did he do, only last Wednesday? Why, he let himself in about four in the morning, and brought home with him his pot-companion, Puffy. His dear wife woke at six, and saw Prettyman’s dirty boots at her bedside. And where was the wretch, her husband? Why, he was drinking downstairs - swilling. Yes; worse than a midnight robber, he’d taken the keys out of his dear wife’s pockets - ha! what that poor creature has to bear! - and had got at the brandy. A pretty thing for a wife to wake at six in the morning, and instead of her husband to see his dirty boots!

“But I’ll not be made your victim, Mr. Caudle, not I. You shall never get at my keys, for they shall lie under my pillow - under my own head, Mr. Caudle.

“You’ll be ruined, but if I can help it, you shall ruin nobody but yourself.

“Oh, that hor - hor - hor - i - ble tob - ac - co!”

To this lecture,Caudle affixes no comment. A certain proof,we think,that the man had nothing to say for himself.

LECTURE III - MR. CAUDLE JOINS A CLUB - “THE SKYLARKS.”

“Well, if a woman hadn’t better be in her grave than be married! That is, if she can’t be married to a decent man. No; I don’t care if you are tired, Ishan’tlet you go to sleep. No, and I won’t say what I have to say in the morning; I’ll say it now. It’s all very well for you to come home at what time you like - it’s now half-past twelve - and expect I’m to hold my tongue, and let you go to sleep. What next, I wonder? A woman had better be sold for a slave at once.

“And so you’ve gone and joined a club? The Skylarks, indeed! A pretty skylark you’ll make of yourself! But I won’t stay and be ruined by you. No: I’m determined on that. I’ll go and take the dear children, and you may get who you like to keep your house. That is, as long as you have a house to keep - and that won’t be long, I know.

“How any decent man can go and spend his nights in a tavern! - oh, yes, Mr. Caudle; I daresay youdoI should like to know how many of you would care for whatgo for rational conversation. you call rational conversation, if you had it without your filthy brandy-and-water; yes, and your more filthy tobacco-smoke. I’m sure the last time you came home, I had the headache for a week. But I know who it is who’s taking you to destruction. It’s that brute, Prettyman. He has broken his own poor wife’s heart, and now he wants to - but don’t you think it, Mr. Caudle; I’ll not have my peace of mind destroyed by the best man that ever trod. Oh, yes! I know you don’t care so long as you can appear well to all the world, - but the world little thinks how you behave to me. It shall know it, though - that I’m determined.

“How any man can leave his own happy fireside to go and sit, and smoke, and drink, and talk with people who wouldn’t one of ’em lift a finger to save him from hanging - how any man can leave his wife - and a good wife, too, though I say it - for a parcel of pot-companions - oh, it’s disgraceful, Mr. Caudle; it’s unfeeling. No man who had the least love for his wife could do it.

“And I suppose this is to be the case every Saturday? But I know what I’ll do. I know - it’s no use, Mr. Caudle, your calling me a good creature: I’m not such a fool as to be coaxed in that way. No; if you want to go to sleep, you should come home in Christian time, not at half-past twelve. There was a time, when you were as regular at your fireside as the kettle. That was when you were a decent man, and didn’t go amongst Heaven knows who, drinking and smoking, and making what you think your jokes. I never heard any good come to a man who cared about jokes. No respectable tradesman does. But I know what I’ll do: I’ll scare away your Skylarks.

The house serves liquor after twelve of a Saturday; and if I don’t write to the magistrates, and have the licence taken away, I’m not lying in this bed this night. Yes, you may call me a foolish woman; but no, Mr. Caudle, no; it’s you who are the foolish man; or worse than a foolish man; you’re a wicked one. If you were to die to-morrow - and people who go to public-houses do all they can to shorten their lives - I should like to know who would write upon your tombstone, ‘A tender husband and an affectionate father’?I- I’d have no such falsehoods told of you, I can assure you.

“Going and spending your money, and - nonsense! don’t tell me - no, if you were ten times to swear it, I wouldn’t believe that you only spent eighteenpence on a Saturday. You can’t be all those hours and only spend eighteenpence. I know better. I’m not quite a fool, Mr. Caudle. A great deal you could have for eighteenpence! And all the Club married men and fathers of families. The more shame for ’em! Skylarks, indeed! They should call themselves Vultures; for they can only do as they do by eating up their innocent wives and children. Eighteenpence a week! And if it was only that, - do you know what fifty-two eighteenpences come to in a year? Do you ever think of that, and see the gowns I wear? I’m sure I can’t, out of the house-money, buy myself a pin-cushion; though I’ve wanted one these six months. No - not so much as a ball of cotton. But what do you care so you can get your brandy-and-water? There’s the girls, too - the things they want! They’re never dressed like other people’s children. But it’s all the same to their father. Oh, yes! So he can go with his Skylarks they may wear sackcloth for pinafores, and packthread for garters.

“You’d better not let that Mr. Prettyman come here, that’s all; or, rather, you’d better bring him once. Yes, I should like to see him. He wouldn’t forget it. A man who, I may say, lives and moves only in a spittoon. A man who has a pipe in his mouth as constant as his front teeth. A sort of tavern king, with a lot of fools like you to laugh at what he thinks his jokes, and give him consequence. No, Mr. Caudle, no; it’s no use your telling me to go to sleep, for I won’t. Go to sleep, indeed! I’m sure it’s almost time to get up. I hardly know what’s the use of coming to bed at all now.

“The Skylarks, indeed! I suppose you’ll be buying a ‘Little Warbler,’ and at your time of life, be trying to sing. The peacocks will sing next. A pretty name you’ll get in the neighbourhood; and, in a very little time, a nice face you’ll have. Your nose is getting redder already: and you’ve just one of the noses that liquor always flies to.You don’t see it’s red- I daresay not - but? No I see it;Isee a great many things you don’t. And so you’ll go on. In a little time, with your brandy-and- water - don’t tell me that you only take two small glasses: I know what men’s two small glasses are; in a little time you’ll have a face all over as if it was made of red currant jam. And I should like to know who’s to endure you then? I won’t, and so don’t think it. Don’t come to me.

“Nice habits men learn at clubs! There’s Joskins: he was a decent creature once, and now I’m told he has more than once boxed his wife’s ears. He’s a Skylark too. And I suppose, some day, you’ll be trying to boxmyears? Don’t attempt it, Mr. Caudle; I say don’t attempt it. Yes - it’s all very well for you to say you don’t mean it, - but I only say again, don’t attempt it. You’d rue it till the day of your death, Mr. Caudle.

“Going and sitting for four hours at a tavern! What men, unless they had their wives with them, can find to talk about, I can’t think. No good, of course.

“Eighteenpence a week - and drinking brandy-and-water, enough to swim a boat! And smoking like the funnel of a steamship! And I can’t afford myself so much as a piece of tape! It’s brutal,

Mr. Caudle. It’s ve-ve-ve - ry bru - tal.”

“And here,” says Caudle - “Here,thank Heaven!at last she fell asleep.”

LECTURE IV - MR. CAUDLE HAS BEEN CALLED FROM HIS BED TO BAIL MR. PRETTYMAN FROM THE WATCH-HOUSE

“Fie, Mr. Caudle, I knew it would come to this. I said it would, when you joined those precious Skylarks. People being called out of their beds at all hours of the night, to bail a set of fellows who are never so happy as when they’re leading sober men to destruction. I should like to know what the neighbours will think of you, with people from the police knocking at the door at two in the morning? Don’t tell me that the man has been ill-used: he’s not the man to be ill-used. And you must go and bail him! I know the end of that: he’ll run away, and you’ll have to pay the money. I should like to know what’s the use of my working and slaving to save a farthing, when you throw away pounds upon your precious Skylarks. A pretty cold you’ll have to-morrow morning, being called out of your warm bed this weather; but don’t you think I’ll nurse you - not I; not a drop of gruel do you get from me.

“I’m sure you’ve plenty of ways of spending your money - not throwing it away upon a set of dissolute peace-breakers. It’s all very well for you to say you haven’t thrown away your money, but you will. He’ll be certain to run off; it isn’t likely he’ll go upon his trial, and you’ll be fixed with the bail. Don’t tell me there’s no trial in the matter, because I know there is; it’s for something more than quarrelling with the policeman that he was locked up. People aren’t locked up for that. No, it’s for robbery, or something worse, perhaps.

“And as you have bailed him, people will think you are as bad as he is. Don’t tell me you couldn’t help bailing him; you should have shown yourself a respectable man, and have let him been sent to prison.

“Now people know you’re the friend of drunken and disorderly persons, you’ll never have a night’s sleep in your bed. Not that it would matter what fell upon you, if it wasn’t your poor wife who suffered. Of course all the business will be in the newspapers, and your name with it. I shouldn’t wonder, too, if they give your picture as they do the other folks of the Old Bailey. A pretty thing that, to go down to your children. I’m sure it will be enough to make them change their name. No, I shall not go to sleep; it’s all very well for you to say, go to sleep, after such a disturbance. But I shall not go to sleep, Mr. Caudle; certainly not.”

“Her will,I have no doubt,” says Caudle, “was strong;but nature was stronger,and she did sleep; this night inflicting upon me a remarkably short lecture.”